Quick and Easy Garlic Bread Recipe

TGIS! Wait, you’ve never heard that? It’s the acronym “thank god it’s Saturday!!” My favorite day of the week. Start of the weekend and all things relaxation based. In the spirit of relaxation and taking it easy, we’re going to do a simple recipe today – a garlic bread recipe. But wait, we’re doing it two ways – with and without cheese. I know, be still your heart!

Sooooo the REAL reason we’re doing a garlic bread recipe is because next week I’m going to bring you a French bread pizza recipe that uses this very garlic bread as the base. And since I didn’t have a garlic bread recipe on the site already, I figured, why not publish one?? Makes sense to me!

Anyway, on to the recipe at hand. Garlic bread, the perineal favorite of both Italian dinner tables and BBQ’s alike. That’s just one way to see how versatile garlic bread really is. You can serve it along side any number of Italian pasta dishes. Or you can serve it alongside a rack of ribs with a side of baked beans. It plays well with others. Very well. And for that reason, it is a well-respected food item. That and it’s amazingly tasty.

For the purposes of this recipe, this is a standard, easy garlic bread. It’s not too fancy, but it is a delicious staple to accompany any pasta dish or rib rack. The only difference between our cheesy garlic bread and the plain garlic bread is the addition of shredded parmesan cheese. While the cheesy version is a fantastic accompaniment to pasta dishes, I’d personally use the plain garlic bread as the base for the French bread pizza. We’ll talk more about that next week in that particular recipe.

Let’s now take a look at process for assembling garlic bread. Below you’ll see that I’ve used a wheat French bread loaf. I prefer the wheat breads (slightly healthier) but you may easily use white French loaf. The other items I always use are butter, garlic, dill and a little kosher salt. This combination provides a robust flavor layer for the French loaf. Spread the butter on in an even layer – it should coat the entire surface of the loaf half but not be excessive. This will impede your crispiness if too much butter is applied. Using the recipe below will provide a perfect amount of butter.

Baking this garlic bread in a properly pre-heated oven is also key. When an oven is properly pre-heated to the appropriate temperature, it’s able to optimally cook whatever’s in it. Having a properly pre-heated oven means that your garlic bread will be starting to crisp from the moment it enters the oven. 10 minutes (the cooking time for this recipe) is not long and it takes every minute of that time to produce the perfect garlic bread loaf.

Below is the finished product. The loaf on the left is the standard garlic bread; to the right is the cheesy garlic bread. Interestingly, I find the wheat bread doesn’t quite brown like the white bread does. The crust is still very crispy but the top just didn’t get as golden as otherwise expected. No bother, it was still very tasty.

And speaking of tasty – the cheesy bread was a delicious accompaniment to a large bowl of hearty tomato sauce with noodles. The spiciness of the sauce and the crispy, fattiness of the garlic bread paired perfectly together. And of course they both had garlic in common so that really sealed the deal.

Ready for some garlic bread? Me too! On to the recipe!

Yield: 12 pieces

Quick and Easy Garlic Bread Recipe

This garlic bread recipe is quick and easy to make. Top it with Parmesan cheese and it becomes a delicious accompaniment to pasta dishes. Using the garlic bread without cheese allows it to accompany BBQ or become the base of a tasty French bread pizza.

Ingredients:

1 loaf french bread, cut in half length-wise

5 tablespoons softened unsalted butter

3 tablespoons minced garlic

1/2 teaspoon dried dill

1/2 teaspoon kosher salt

Fresh ground black pepper, to taste

Optional: 2/3 cup shredded parmesan cheese

Method:

Pre-heat oven to 400 ºF

Mix the butter, garlic, dill and salt together in a small bowl.

Spread liberally over each half of the French bread.

Top with a few cranks of fresh ground black pepper

Optional: if cheesy garlic bread is wanted, top the bread with shredded Parmsesan cheese before baking

Bake for 10 minutes, until crispy golden brown.

Slice each half into 6 pieces and serve alongside hearty tomato sauce or a huge rack of BBQ ribs.